Pure 90s Cringe

Since it was recently 3/03 day, which is one of the few "funny number" days that both Americans and Europeans can agree on, I decided to pick up a 303. Not the legendary Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer, the device which single-handedly launched the entire musical genre of Acid Drum and Bass, but instead the Roland MC-303 groove box which launched absolutely nothing of value.

Which is a bit odd, considering that this one box could easily substitute for a TB-303, while also stepping in for much loved drum machines like the TR-808, TR-909, TR-606 and CR-78, while still having room left over for 6 more (admittedly rompler) synth parts.

But its cardinal sin was, I think, that it came with too many preset patterns, which led people who consider themselves serious musicians to dismiss it, putting it in the same category as those home keyboards that play a whole song when you just hold down a single key. Thus it was relegated to the DJ table of tweeners' birthday parties where they could dance to its slightly too repetitive preset beats.

That said, many products that Roland has produced over the years, like the aforementioned bass and drum machines, were initially considered failures until they were unloaded in thrift shops and sold for $100 to a new generation of aspiring musicians who would then go on to produce great, genre-defining works with them.  The MC-303 is no different in that regard. Well, at least the part where I picked it up from a thrift shop for $100, I don't think anyone's made any great, genre-defining works with one. (Though the MC-505 that came out later as its replacement did see some success)

Anyway, all that aside this box was only $100 because it doesn't work, so let's crack it open and see what juicy goodness awaits us inside.

Ah yes, juicy goodness. Some obvious signs of spilled liquids on the bottom case there.

And it's on the main panel PCB as well, here's a few extra juicy spots.

And on the top side things are looking kinda sticky.

When I did the initial tests the unit powered on and most functions seemed to work, but the buttons in this corner in particular were largely nonfunctional, including SW27 which is the 'Play' button. Rather important one, that. Checking the resistance showed a reading of hundreds of ohms with the switch pressed, so they obviously need replacement.

So let's get the plastic key caps off and bust out the IPA.

And with a little scrubbing, things are looking dramatically cleaner.

This cleaning didn't bring the switches back to life, of course, and these rubber dome 8x8x5 switches in particular are a bit tricky to find replacements for.

The original switches are made by Panasonic, and Roland was very fond of using their switches for a while in the 90s up until Panasonic stopped manufacturing switches because they were so incredibly bad at it. Other manufacturers still make similar switches, but most of them are semi-anonymous Chinese factories that are hard to pin down the identity of and even harder to order from. Luckily there's still some new-old-stock of the QJJ05Q switches floating around, so I ordered some of those off eBay and we'll see how things go when they arrive.

The other tact switches are thankfully much easier to find, they're just bog standard 6x6x5 clicky switches with the only peculiarity being that they're 2-pin rather than the more common 4-pin variety. I already had a bag of them laying around that I was planning to use for my Roland JP-8000, but I didn't feel bad pilfering them as I can always buy more.

So, nothing to it but to do it.

35 old crusty switches come out...

And 35 shiny new switches go in.

Then everything goes back in the box, which has now been cleaned, for a quick test.

Don't worry about half the display being blank, that's just due to the really slow refresh rate on the LED matrix.

And with the knobs back on and the case buttoned up (and with the picture timed to show the other half of the display lit up)...

All the replaced buttons are working perfectly, and I was able to validate the full functionality of the system.

Quite surprisingly I didn't need to replace or service any of the potentiometers along the top. It's really common for them to get damaged since Roland for some reason didn't see fit to actually bolt them down to the solid metal front panel, so a suitably forceful sideways strike can basically split the potentiometer clean in half. I guess I'll count my blessings on that one.

Anyway, all that's left to do now is wait for the NOS switches to arrive so that the 3-4 dead keyboard keys can be revived and it'll be good as new. There'll be nothing left to fix or improve...

Or will there be? Stay tuned.

Spring Has Sprung

I may have mentioned this in a previous blog entry, or I may have not, but in either case I've been on a mission recently to rid my yard of calla lilies, or at least the ones that are popping up in inappropriate places, like in plant pots with other plants, or interspersed with my rosemary, or erupting out from under my iris plants.

But I decided to leave the ones here beside the former hantavirus shed.

There's nothing else growing here and they're basically out of the way, so they can stay.

Anyway, the plum is in full bloom now and looking all white and fluffy.

Hopefully I'll get a decent crop of fruit this year, but one never knows.

Elsewhere the geraniums are doing their gerenial things.

And the periwinkle are being their usual unkillable selves.

I've been debating ripping up this one too, as it's a rather aggressive invasive plant, but so far I've managed to keep it contained without too much effort.

The milkwort in the front is doing surprisingly well, despite it repeatedly trying to kill itself.

And the same goes for the spanish lavender.

The french lavender isn't in bloom yet, so we'll give it a few more months before taking some beauty pics of it.

The pink lemonade blueberry is in full bloom.

I'm not expecting a huge crop because the plant is still pretty small, but we'll see how things progress.

The gay goblin is being gay and goblinesque.

And the japanese boxwood is looking green and fluffy.

Though perhaps a bit too green and fluffy, so I gave it a quick trim with the hedge clippers after taking this photo.

All in all the yard is doing quite well so far this year.

The Freshening Part 5

So it's about time I got this project fully wrapped up, and a little ahead of schedule as I managed to get an early start today which meant I could burn some time before lunch, and thus before the attic turned into an inferno that would cook me alive as soon as I poked my head up above ceiling level.

Of course, the first task didn't even take place in the attic itself, but rather in my car hole, where I bent up a piece of sheet metal into a 5 inch round splice.

Fun fact: you can make round things on a sheet metal brake... Well, sort-of-round things. Round enough.

Anyway, that piece goes in between the too-short piece of duct I installed a few days ago and the new piece of duct that arrived on my doorstep.

So this area over here is no longer a hideous octopus of aluminum foil ducting.

And what did I do with the remaining 15-or-so feet of duct from the 25 foot box?

I shoved it back in the box. I'm sure I'll find a use for it at some point. It can live up here until then.

Speaking of boxes, I installed the relay box which allows me to adapt the 120v timer switches I installed last time to the 24v control lines that the HRV uses.

It's just a pair of relays with 120vac coils (which is apparently a thing) wired up exactly how you'd expect them to be.

And good news: even at full zoot with the "Taco Tuesday" button switched on, the HRV is still barely audible down in the occupied portion of the house. In fact, I think removing the duct-o-pus from the output actually made it a bit quieter than it was initially, which is pretty sweet.

So the only other question is: how efficient is this HRV? Well, it was a little over 28c outside the other day so I pointed my thermal camera at the fresh air vent.

Hmm. Well, I guess I can't really expect miracles when there's only 4 degrees difference between the inside and outside temperature. And, let's face it, this is California; the main goal here, which I achieved, was getting more air circulation inside the house without having to open the windows and let a bunch of pollen and pollution in.

But while I've got the thermal cam out, let's see how the insulation in the car hole is performing (which is still an ongoing project).

Well now that's a bit more of a dramatic difference. The face of the insulation (left) is only 25c while the underside of the roof (right) is roasting at 42c.

Now that the HRV project is done, I'll hopefully be able to wrap up the insulation project over the next few weeks before spring really kicks into high gear and the hot days become more inconveniently frequent.

But in the meantime I've got some fresh air to enjoy.

Seeing Stars

When I got my microscope, I foolishly decided to get a stereo binocular unit instead of a trinocular unit which has a third "eyepiece" for a camera to be mounted to. For most usage this isn't a big deal as I'm only using my own two eyes to look through the microscope, but I've found that occasionally I'll want to shoot a photo or video of something I'm looking at up close, and the lack of a camera mount puts me in an awkward position.

I thought about trying to find some sort of adapter to be able to mount a smartphone to look through a microscope eyepiece, but the fact is that the market for people who bought a microscope but need a camera feed and didn't get a trinocular is pretty small and not worth serving.

On the other hand, the market for people who bought a telescope and want to take pictures through it with their smartphone is much, much larger.

And wouldn't you know it, but the eyepieces are, externally at least, pretty much identical between telescopes and microscopes. The field of view isn't really amazing mind you, so I have to zoom in a bit to avoid the circular cropping, but all told it's pretty easy to set up and yields some perfectly usable images.

It's certainly worth the $20 I spent on it.

The Freshening Part 4

When we last left off on our HRV installation adventure, we were staring at the underside of a piece of cardboard blocking up a hole in my ceiling that was a bit too large for the vent that was about to go into it.

Since this will be another long one, click through to continue reading.

Caulk, Robot Caulk

Recently I had cause to dispense some construction adhesive in order to stick something to another something (as one does). This reminded me that squeezing construction adhesive out of its tube with a regular manual caulking gun is quite a bit more difficult than I'd prefer to put up with. So, I hired a robot to squeeze it for me.

I was almost a little worried when the new electric caulking gun stalled before squeezing any adhesive out of the tube, but after clearing up a bit of dried up adhesive from the tip it was able to dispense it without too much difficulty.

And just for context, it's not like I'm lacking in forearms strength by any measure, I can squeeze the handle on my caulking gun hard enough to basically collapse it, and the construction adhesive will just barely, ever so slowly, ooze out of its tube.

So the fact that this new caulking gun can squeeze out a healthy bead at a respectable rate is nothing short of impressive.

I suspect I'll still use my manual caulking gun for most regular caulking jobs as it's much lighter, a bit more compact, and absolutely sufficient for the job. At least, I will after the novelty of using this new one wears off. But for construction adhesive in particular, I'm going all in on electric power.

The Freshening Part 3

Parts have arrived, the week has been booked off, so let's get things moving for real. We'll start by yeeting the HRV up my shiny new attic ladder.

But because this will be a long post, not until after the break. Click through to continue reading.